Comments on watching and making films.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Joseph Kahn wants you to believe that people still care about music video's, and record companies should too!

Saw this on twitter the other day -


Now, while I may agree with the sentiment of the top tweet (there are certainly more than ample outlets for videos of ANY kind right now), the lower sentiment I can't agree with. Why should record companies spend millions of dollars on videos? What sense does that make anymore? The last time I remember anyone being even remotely excited about a video was Arcade Fire's Suburbs video, and that was less a video and more an interactive experience. Before that, I couldn't even say.

Don't get me wrong, I think music video's are still very relevant in todays world, but for anyone to believe that a multi-million dollar video (especially the kind of mostly useless eye candy videos that Kahn makes) is meaningful, I think that is beyond the limits of being reasonable. The Halcyon days are over, Joe. No one cares anymore, at least not enough to drop that kind of cash, and record companies that do (unless it's for acts like U2 or Lady Gaga), are throwing away their money. Earlier this year, my friends made a gorgeous video for a musician for a few hundred dollars and a days work. My brother has made a few music videos for Alice In Chains, one around 10k, another under 30k.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of being able to make a great living and only having to work a few days out of the year, and on top of that, work with big name artists. I would love to do that, but, I'm pretty sure I can do all of that without pissing away the kind of money that gets spent on the kind of video's Kahn makes.

The days of bloated, epic, but incredibly pointless music videos is, for the most part, over, and I say good riddance.

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